Were the Three Stooges filmed for TV broadcast?

[arcadian]

Or for shorts played before a feature film? Both?

[Amerigo Vespucci]

1. Shorts

The Stooges released 190 short films between 1934 and 1959 at Columbia Pictures. Their contract was extended each year from 1934 until the final one expired on December 31, 1957. The last 8 of the 16 shorts with Joe Besser were released soon afterwards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Stooges#Shorts

:toast:

[arcadian]

2. So these shorts were played before movies?

[Amerigo Vespucci]

5. My understanding is that movies of that era...

...had a combination of extras, usually a cartoon, sometimes a "Movietone Newsreel," and a "short subject" as they were called.

Mystery Science Theater had a lot of fun with shorts that fell into public domain (cheap raw material for them), but a short could be a Stooges film, a mini-documentary, anything...well, "short," as the name implies...like all of the old "Radar Men From The Moon" serials and such. Some 10-15 minute mini-movie.

:-)

Some of the MGM DVDs that have come out in recent years have structured them so that they mirror content that would have accompanied the main feature.

You didn't go to a theater to "see a Three Stooges short"...it was part of the opening act for a feature. Of course, if a theater manager had the rights, they could schedule an afternoon / evening of back-to-back shorts, but that's unlikely as they didn;t keep the movies after their initial run.

:toast:

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

3. There really wasn't TV

when most of the episodes were made. They were played as 'shorts' in the theaters...........

[old mark]

4. They were short features played before full length movies, made before

TV was a working reality. Some later Stooges work was movies, but I don't believe they ever had a "real" TV program.
Many of their episodes date to the 1930's - I think the old ones are really the best!

Note: W.C. Fields movie "The Bank Dick" (1940) featured Shemp Howard - of the Stooges - playing a bartender.


mark